Friday, May 25, 2012

What
has been will be again,what
has been done will be done again; there
is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

Ten years ago when I first became serious about writing
novels for publication, learning how to come up with ideas was the first order
of business. I’d dreamed of being a
writer all my life, but when I sat down to write, I realized that turning my
dream into a book started with an idea.

I began a file and selected three of the best ideas--the ones that caught
my attention. Then I narrowed it down to the one that I would research for
turning into a novel. I’d found a newspaper article about a group of
covert operatives who rescued those suffering in places like Sudan. I visited my local
Christian bookstore to browse other novels and see what else would compare to mine.

Just over ten years later on the publishing journey, I’ve learned that all authors suffer through
discovering someone else has the same great idea. Either an editor already has
a comparable proposal on their desk or there are several books out with similar
concepts. Often it’s much more
devastating to learn that someone else is further along in the process with a similar
idea. Writers can lose their motivation to keep going.

Why does this happen? Seasoned writers understand there is
nothing new under the sun and though story concepts may be similar, a writer
brings his or her voice to the story and many other elements to create a
completely different story.

We often credit Thomas Edison for inventing the light bulb,
but did you know that Joseph Swan earned a British patent for his light bulb
around the same time as Edison? Both of them developed their work from other
scientist who’d experimented before them.

If someone else has an idea like yours, consider yourself in
good company. You’re on the right track, but maybe you should delve deeper to make
your story unique.